Tomorrow Never Dies
by DressageQueen
Summary: Sam is a freshman at U of Nevada Reno and goes to GBC (where Jake is) to cover a basketball game. One-shot.


"202… 203… 204!" Sam double checked the note on her phone to make sure she had the right dorm room before knocking on the door. She had traveled to Great Basin College with the University of Reno's basketball team to cover their game. Ethan was supposed to be in charge of sports for the school's newspaper. But a family emergency meant he had to go home, and Sam had volunteered because she was hoping to be considered for editor next year.

"Yes?" The door flung open to reveal a tall girl with flawless skin, long dark hair, and perfect eyebrows. She looked a bit like that girl Toni from that show Riverdale Jen kept urging Sam to watch.

 _I should've texted him first,_ Sam thought.

"Um, is this Jake Ely's dorm?" Sam asked quietly. She should not have just shown up. But she didn't even know she was going to be here until this morning. She had volunteered to cover Reno's upcoming basketball game two days ago, but she hadn't known what school they would be playing. She asked one of the player's this morning as they were loading onto the bus, thinking she should check up on the opposing team's stats.

Sam thought both she and Jake would be way too busy to meet up, so she hadn't texted him. But then she found herself with two hours to kill as the team ate lunch and had a meeting. She had been invited to join them, but she figured that since she was here, she may as well go see if Jake was free.

So here she was, standing in front of a gorgeous girl who was also smart, by the Thermodynamics and Kinetics textbook she was holding. The girl looked Sam up and down and arched one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"Yeah, this is Jake's room. He's in his biology lab right now. But he should be back pretty soon."

Sam swallowed hard, looking at the girl's sleek hair and cute outfit, an olive green t-shirt dress and brown ankle boots. Sam was increasingly aware of how disheveled she probably looked in her jeans and U of Nevada Reno sweatshirt, especially after being on a bus for two and half hours.

So Jake had a girlfriend. A tall, beautiful, smart girlfriend who knew his schedule perfectly and waited for him in his dorm room. He should have mentioned her. Best friends let each other know when they started dating someone.

"I'll just… come back later I guess," Sam replied. Of course Jake had a girlfriend. He was smart, attractive, polite, and had the whole cowboy thing going. What girl wouldn't go after him?

"Really, he should be back any second. You can wait for him inside if you like," the girl said, opening the door wider.

"No!" Sam said quickly. "No thank you. I have something I need to do anyways." Sam turned away a started back down the hall way.

"Um, alright. Have a good day then I guess," Sam heard the girl say before the door shut.

Sam hugged her journalism notebook to her chest and ducked her head as she rushed down the stairs and went around the corner of the building before knocking into someone.

"God I'm so sorry!" Sam exclaimed as she rushed to help pick up the other person's fallen textbook and papers.

"Brat?"

Sam looked up to see Jake staring down at her, frowning. She popped up, holding his papers.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Oh, uh, Reno's basketball team was playing yours, and I thought I'd come say hi and see if you were free. I should have texted you first of course, but I didn't know we'd be playing your school until this morning and then I didn't know if I would have any time and so-"

"Sam," Jake interrupted. "Take a breath." Jake put his both his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

Sam stared up into his mustang eyes. Those warm brown eyes that were so mysterious yet so familiar.

"I just got out of my bio lab. Did you want to get something to eat?" Jake asked he stepped back and took his papers she was holding before bending to pick up his textbook and her notebook. "I have to stop by my dorm first and drop this stuff off though."

 _His dorm. Where his girlfriend was waiting._ Sam grabbed the notebook he held out to her and said, "No. I don't. I, um, I have to go," before she turned and headed towards the crowded quad.

"Sam? Sam!" She heard him call after her, but she kept going. She had, in fact, wanted to get lunch with him, but she found she wasn't hungry anymore. Sam kept walking, past the student center, the cafeteria, and the rec center.

It's not like she wanted to date Jake. That would be ridiculous. Why would he ever date her? Basic algebra still made her head spin and no one would ever ask her to be a model.

Sam slowed down as she passed by the school's garden. She walked among the different plants, fighting back tears. It was stupid to cry. It wasn't like Jake would stop being her friend now that he had a girlfriend. They'd still see each other at home and he could help her with Tempest. That's what's important anyway.

Sam hadn't even known she felt so strongly about Jake having a girlfriend until this moment. She always thought that maybe one day something would happen between them, but not for a while. Maybe after college when they were both settled down. Sam saw the way other girls looked at Jake. She knew he was attractive. But she never really thought he'd actually have a girlfriend. He was always so tongue-tied around girls he didn't know.

But, Sam figured, it was only a matter of time before he ended up with someone. She found a napkin in the pocket of her sweatshirt and blew her nose before wiping eyes again. _Get it together, Forster,_ she thought and she took a deep breath. She checked her watch. She had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat before she had to meet up with the team again.

Sam wandered back through the main part of GBC's campus and found a cafe where she bought a bagel and a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. She sat down at one of the booths and opened her notebook to where she had written down facts about both of the teams. Reno had two more wins than GBC, but overall they seemed as though they were evenly matched teams, which should make for an exciting game.

Sam hoped the game would be exciting enough to take her mind off of Jake and his new girlfriend. It was the beginning of November. They would probably both be too busy with their families to see each other over Thanksgiving break, so that meant she had until the middle of December when winter break started to get used to the fact that Jake has a girlfriend. That was over a month. No problem.

Sam glanced at her watch and saw that she should head over to meet the team in the gym. She downed the rest of her hot chocolate and threw her trash away before heading towards the gymnasium. She found a spot in the bleachers on the mostly empty visitor's side and settled in to watch the guys warm up. She wrote down a few adjectives to describe the atmosphere and nodded along to the upbeat music playing, trying to forget all about Jake.

Right from the start, the game proved to be an exciting one. Sam soon remembered why she loved basketball so much and had played in middle school. She found her self cheering when Reno scored and groaning when the ref made a bad call.

"Sam?" Sam looked up to see Jake's girlfriend standing next to her. It was almost halfway through the first half and Reno had just called a time out.

"Yes?" Sam asked. _I guess Jake hasn't forgotten ALL about me if she knows my name_ , Sam thought.

The girl glanced across the gym and Sam followed her gaze to see Jake talking with two other guys.

"I feel like there might be a misunderstanding between us," the girl said. "I'm Dani," she continued, and stuck out her hand.

"Sam," Sam replied as they shook, "but I guess you already knew that. What did you mean by a misunderstanding?"

"I don't really know how to say this, so I'm just gonna be blunt. I'm not Jake's girlfriend."

"What?" Sam was shocked. "How did you-"

"You're the only person in his life that I know anything about. I know more about you than I do about his family," Dani replied. "Plus I don't really swing that way."

Dani waved at the cheerleaders across from them who were taking a water break as the basketball players made their way back onto the court. One of the girls grinned and waved back at Dani and Dani said, "That's my girlfriend, Emily."

"Oh! How do you know Jake then?" Sam asked.

"Jake and I met in chemistry freshmen year. We were lab partners so we studied together and discovered that we both like to run, so we got to be good friends. We go running every weekend and we still study together even when we don't have the same classes. He's a great guy, Sam. And he definitely has feelings for you."

"Really? You think so?" Sam swung her head around to face Dani and blushed, knowing how transparent she was being when Dani laughed.

"Yeah," Dani smiled, "He talks about you all the time. And you should see when girls throw themselves at him. He lets them down gently of course, but he still makes it perfectly clear that he's not interested."

Suddenly a thought popped into Sam's head.

"Did you guys talk about me? When he came back after I had left?"

"Yeah," Dani replied. "I thought you looked familiar when I opened the door, but I couldn't place where I knew you from. Then Jake came back and mentioned that he had bumped into you and everything clicked. I realized you probably thought I was his girlfriend, so when he mentioned that you were here covering the basketball game, I knew I had to come talk to you."

"I'm glad you did," Sam responded and looked across the gym towards Jake.

He looked up and their eyes met. He nodded towards her and the corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile, and Sam couldn't help but grin broadly back at him.

Maybe there was still hope for them after all.


End file.
